THE ERUPTIONS
cone and sent a stream of lava out to
windward. At the close of that erup
tion the lava filled up the breach, and
subsequent eruptions sent flows of lava
and threw beds of ash over it.
The western side of the crater rim
showed a gash leading into the Larakai
Valley, but the bottom of the gash was
more than a thousand feet above the
bottom of the crater.
Mr MacDonald
said that the gash was there before the
eruption took place, but that it seemed
to him to have increased in size since
the outbursts began. The gash is very
much smaller than that in the southwest
side of Mont Pelee, and it does not seem
to have had any determinable effect in
concentrating the force of Soufriere's
volcanic hurricanes.*
On June 4 Messrs Jaggar, Curtis, and
I made an attempt at the ascent from
the windward side. We reached the
altitude of 3,200 feet, but turned back
without getting to the crater itself, on
account of the dense trade-wind clouds.
Dr Jaggar felt obliged to leave St Vin
cent on the next day, but Mr Curtis
and I remained at Georgetown to study
the coast line and the Rabaka Dry River
and to try the Soufriere again. On
June 9 Mr Curtis and I made our third
ascent, alone, except for one guide, and
reached the rim of the crater on the
southeastern side two or three hundred
yards beyond the spot at which we had
turned back on the preceding occasion.
For fifteen or twenty yards back from
the edge of the rim there were crevices
in the ground many yards long and up
to three inches wide, which formed
lenses with the edge itself and indicated
the imminence of landslides into the
crater. We pushed along the rim north
ward until, at an altitude of 3,550 feet
* The reports (communicated to me by Mr
MacDonald) of persons who have visited the
summit of the mountain since the great erup
tions of September indicate a further enlarge
ment of this gash, and some " notching " or
lessening in height of the saddle between the
large crater and the crater of 1812.
)F LA SOUFRIERE
449
(aneroid) above the sea, we stood be
tween the large crater and the crater of
1812.
The summit of La Soufriere east of
the large crater and south of the small
one is formed by a rather small plateau
which slopes gently toward the south
east, closely analogous in position to the
small plateau on the eastern summit of
Mont Pelee which was the site of the
Lac des Palmistes. This plateau was
covered with a bed of dust, lapilli,
bombs, and ejected blocks which was
ten to fifteen feet thick in places, and
the trenches cut by recent rains made
traveling very laborious, except near
the edge of the crater. The rim imme
diately above the most active portion of
the great crater (its southeastern quar
ter) was precipitous and almost over
hanging. Steam seemed to issue from
it almost up to the very edge of the
plateau. The steam smelled of sulphur
gases.
In spite of clouds and rain, this visit,
through occasional glimpses of the in
terior, led me to the conclusion that the
crater of 1812, which for nearly a cen
tury has gone by the name of the
" New" crater, took no active part in
the eruptions of May of the present
year, an inference based on the follow
ing considerations: The saddle between
the two craters appeared to be intact,
confirming the observation made from
the other side of the large crater; a
knife-edge ridge which ran at a steep
incline from the saddle to the bottom
of the small crater and formed the path
way for descent into it before the erup
tion was still there and had on its slopes
bare trunks of trees standing ; in the
bottom of the crater along the base of
this ridge we could see talus slopes of
dry (?) dust and lapilli which had slid
and rolled down its sides; although the
roaring of the steam and boiling water
nearly half a mile below us in the large
crater was obtrusively discernible, no
sound whatever came from within the